Sheila Kuehl is doing something different as she campaigns for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. As well as telling voters about herself, Kuehl is trying to teach them about the office.

On the Kuehl for Supervisor website and in emails, the former California legislator is writing a series of essays she is calling “LA County 101,” explaining aspects of the powerful but little-understood county government.

“I want people to understand how important it is that they vote,” Kuehl said today in a visit to the Los Angeles News Group editorial board at the Daily News’ offices in Woodland Hills.

It’s important, indeed. Voters in the June 3 primary are being asked to choose a successor to the respected Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky as representative of L.A. County’s Third District, which covers the San Fernando Valley and stretches to Hollywood, Santa Monica and Westlake Village. Kuehl, a Santa Monica resident, is the leading fundraiser so far in a field expected to include former Santa Monica Mayor Bobby Shriver, former Malibu Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich, and West Hollywood City Council member John Duran.

Since leaving the state Senate because of term limits in 2008, Kuehl has been teaching about government at UCLA and running a public-policy institute at Santa Monica College. The Democrat notes that in the decade since she last ran for office, social media and campaign-financing trends have changed a lot about the election game.

Putting together her teaching instincts with the reach of digital media, Kuehl’s essays are telling voters more about their county — and, of course, about her way of thinking.